What is the point of academic research in majors like English?

[ChiralWaltz]

There are passions I don't understand. I try to though.

Superimposition of minds can wind you in a chiral position, you may not be the same in your reflection.

 

[ainster31]

What do you mean by "useful applications" and "many applications", as these are subjective terms?

For example, right now, we are in a "golden age" of relativistic cosmology. As usual, on my way to work today I stopped at a coffee shop for tea and a cheese croissant. While I sipped my tea, I read some fascinating technical stuff about dimensional regularization in quantum field theory applied to the cosmological constant problem.

How is this going to help to save the world?

I've already provided the example for cryptography engineering. If you want an example for physics: when the theory of relativity was developed, it had no practical application to the real world. Relativity now has some applications and humans will continue to find applications of relativity. Quantum mechanics is expected to have real world application in the long-term.

Have you tried stepping back from the immediate work and thought about this question from a bigger picture perspective?

I can think of a lot that can come out of the study of literature, or other media for that matter. The stories we tell and how we tell them define our culture, they define and reinforce social values, they illuminate the problems that our society is faced with and record how we grapple with them.

Earlier today I found myself thinking about the story "The Body" by Stephen King - the one that the movie "Stand By Me" was based on. Something about this story really connected with me as a kid, and still does as an adult. From an analytical point of view I could point out that the story is about death: the death of the body the boys are going to see, the death of Gordie's older brother and ultimately the death of childhood. The movie even opens with a narrative about the death of Chris Chambers if I remember. So from this one might ask, why the death of one's childhood would hold any importance at all?

We have evolved to process some problems metaphorically. Of course, we don't accept such processing in physics for example, because such methodology is prone to errors and difficult to quantify and can be extremely difficult to articulate in a consistent manner. But what about with personal problems... Dealing with the death of a loved one? Figuring out why you were teased so much in the sixth grade that you didn't want to go to school? Or why a girl in high school dumped you for your best friend?

There's value in living through such experiences in literature. And there is value in furthering our understanding of the literature itself because in this way we gain insight into our abstract problems, their causes and their solutions.

The general movie going audience doesn't care that the gun carried by Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern represents the ability to deliver death, and therefore an element of control over it. But they experience a sense of triumph in the movies when Keifer Sutherland asks, "Are you going to kill all of us?" and Will Wheaton replies... "No, Ace. Just you."

I would argue there is a lot of value in understanding why that is.

I agree that literature is important. Reading novels is a good way to think critically and anyone who reads (a good majority of people read) will benefit. My argument however, is that literature research specifically is pointless for anyone other than the researchers themselves. The researchers think critically but no one else cares other than the few academic peers they have.

OK, so we're back to almost 0% of any research ever being useful.

I disagree. I'd say that pretty much 100% of all research in mathematics, science, and engineering is useful because it fills the definition of valuable that I provided. The research either has a positive impact on >5% of the population (or is eventually expected to have a positive impact on >5% of the population) or in the case of Mathematics, it provides tools that allows further research to have a positive impact on >5% of the population. Actually, with Mathematics, it even has direct applications to the real world mainly via computer science.

Not to mention you still haven't made clear what a net positive impact is. Do the people get to decide what a net positive impact is?

Whether an impact is deemed positive, neutral, or negative is up to the discretion of myself. If you disagree with my discretion with a specific case, we can do a separate debate on such topic.

Because if so then all you need is 5% of the population saying they think literary analysis is valuable to make this whole thread moot.

I would agree that literary analysis is a positive thing. It isn't valuable research however, because it doesn't have a positive impact or any impact at all whether it be negative, neutral, or positive. No one is going to be impacted by a literary analysis because laymen don't read the research. The only people who read the research are other researchers (<5% of the population). Technology on the other hand has huge impacts. Technology impacts >5% of the population whether or not laymen read the research.

It's a comic book because comic book describes the format that the story contained within is given to the readers. However, you said... which gives an implication that comic book authors do not put work into making their books significant pieces of literature. This is true usually - the typical batman or superman story exists primarily for escapism - but in this specific case there is no reason to believe this is so, unless you actually read the book and do some literary analysis. Your whole argument in the original post is based on the implicit assumption that comic books cannot be worthy works of literature.

No, my original argument in the OP is not based on the assumption that comics are not good pieces of work. Comic books such as Persepolis are indeed good pieces of work. My point is that the literary analysis is so in-depth and well-done that the person doing the literary analysis did more work than the person that wrote Persepolis. This is debatable and honestly, this was supposed to be a funny observation that had nothing to do with my argument.

Who do you think is putting those symbols in?

Authors are not putting the symbols in intentionally. Check out this survey: http://mentalfloss.com/article/3093...ism-their-work-and-whether-it-was-intentional

ainster, the primary purpose of literary analysis is that it makes literature an effective tool for communicating with humans on an emotional level. This is a legitimately important function; you can tell people facts and point out logical arguments all they want, but they will very rarely internalize these things.

Yes, I agree.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/opinion/29mon3.html?_r=0

This is psychology - not literature. My argument is literature research is pointless - not psychology research.

Milgram ran an experiment 50 years ago to test whether Germans had a special weakness for authority, or whether everyone was willing to inflict pain and suffering merely on the basis that an authority figure told them to do it. This is a very well known study, and you would think over the past 50 years all our discussions about the horrors of fascism, etc. would have led people to think a bit more critically about these kinds of situations.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/01/07/racism.study/

Another example, where people are more racist than they think. You can tell people that racism is bad all you want, and talk about how great equality is, but it seems to be impossible for humans to internalize these lessons when all you do is tell them that overtly. Worse, people can't even tell they aren't internalizing these lessons. Here is an excellent quote from the end of the above article

See above.

The purpose of literature at a high level is to allow you to experience the story of another person, and the purpose of literary analysis is to hlep find out what the lessons we could have learned from that story are. We are apparently quite incapable of internalizing things we know are morally and ethically correct without going through the experience ourselves, which is quite often impossible or highly impractical, so literature can play a key role in shaping our moral and ethical viewpoint. Literary analysis is a tool which examines the kinds of lessons that are being taught by a story which is important if we need to rely on literature to deliver lessons that shape our society to be a better and more equitable one.

http://ucb-cluj.org/2013/02/22/why-reading-makes-you-less-racist/

Near the bottom are links to articles showing all the benefits of reading for increasing human empathy, just to give some additional examples of how reading literature is important for changing people.

I agree with all of this. The issue isn't with literature. It's with literature research. If everyone reads (majority of people), that is great because it has a huge impact since it is >5% of the population. Literature research done by researchers (<5% of the population) is pointless because it has no impact.

To go back to the original comic book, Persepolis. A lot of Western society has a very poor understanding of the human situation in the middle east, and there is a general lack of empathy for Muslims and Arabs. Persepolis is a book which may or may not be an excellent tool for combating that, describing how an average person grows up in Iran during the overthrowing of the Shah. I say may or may not because without doing some kind of analysis to figure out what kind of symbolism the book contains, and what kind of lessons it can potentially teach its readers, it's impossible to say.

I agree with all of this. If everyone read books like Persepolis and thought critically, that is awesome.

Do you believe that doing research to figure out whether it could be an effective tool at combating this problem in society is not worthwhile?

No, because only the researchers are doing the critical thinking and therefore it is pointless because it has no impact (<5% of the population).

 

[ainster31]

The term "useful" carries with it a lot of complexities; furthermore, your definition of "value" is not a universal one.

I've given you a definition of value. My definition of value may not be a universal one but I would love to hear your definition of value that would allow literature research to be valuable.

That being said, sure one could argue that a collection of research over a long period of time that amounts to nothing of "value" in your sense of the word is a waste of time. Why do you think this is unique to fields like literature however? Axiomatic set theory, algebraic topology, algebraic/topological/functorial quantum field theory, and the conventionality of simultaneity are all topics that arguably suffer more from this than does literature.

Because it has been demonstrated that research in science, technology, and engineering gives you tools that have applications to the real world just as long as enough time is given and therefore these applications are expected in the long-term. I've already given an example of how pure mathematics is used in cryptography engineering and how relativity went from zero applications when Einstein developed the theory to some (still growing) applications. Quantum mechanics has applications to electrical circuits.

As soon as we realize that a model does not represent the real world, we either drop it or we continue to research it in hopes that it truly does represent the real world and therefore is expected to have long-term applications.

I've read physically insightful and instructive papers on the foundations of GR (e.g. http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~dmalamen/bio/papers/RotationNoGo.pdf) but it's obvious that they don't have "value" within the utilitarian framework that you have established.

Are you saying that relativity is not valuable? Or just that specific paper?

The only point I can make out of the entire post:
No one cares except those who care.
Okay... So?

The same applies to STEM research: no ones care except those who care. The point is that research is valuable when it fits the definition I have provided earlier: it has an impact to a noticeable amount of the population. English research doesn't have an impact on a noticeable amount of the population. Whereas technology affects everyone regardless if they care or not about the research, the same cannot be said for English research.

 

[ainster31]

I think people are confusing psychology and other fields with literature. I know I said "like English" in the title, but what I meant was research in fields that are equally pointless (pointless in terms of research - not the field itself) but you cannot read my mind so I should've just said English research.

 

[jgens]

My argument however, is that literature research specifically is pointless for anyone other than the researchers themselves. The researchers think critically but no one else cares other than the few academic peers they have.

Research has an important role in shaping literature and identifying which works are worthy of close reading. This is just one important function the academic community serves.

I disagree. I'd say that pretty much 100% of all research in mathematics, science, and engineering is useful because it fills the definition of valuable that I provided. The research either has a positive impact on >5% of the population (or is eventually expected to have a positive impact on >5% of the population) or in the case of Mathematics, it provides tools that allows further research to have a positive impact on >5% of the population. Actually, with Mathematics, it even has direct applications to the real world mainly via computer science.

Sorry to tell you this but the vast majority of mathematical research will never see application.

Authors are not putting the symbols in intentionally. Check out this survey: http://mentalfloss.com/article/3093...ism-their-work-and-whether-it-was-intentional

I was just having this argument with someone in chat the other day. Intention is not the only relevant thing when analyzing a literary work. We all say things / do things with meanings we do not intend and these often give great insight into our personal world-views.

 

[leroyjenkens]

I was just having this argument with someone in chat the other day. Intention is not the only relevant thing when analyzing a literary work. We all say things / do things with meanings we do not intend and these often give great insight into our personal world-views.

This is why I like ambiguity in music. It allows for everyone to come up with their own interpretation and how it matches with what's going on in their lives. And maybe it can give them hope or inspiration or something, even though the artist may have thought of something totally different when they were writing those lyrics.

 

[Pythagorean]

I think people are confusing psychology and other fields with literature. I know I said "like English" in the title, but what I meant was research in fields that are equally pointless (pointless in terms of research - not the field itself) but you cannot read my mind so I should've just said English research.

English researchers study anything from prose to effective sentence structures to writing devices. Here's an example of how an English researcher might go through literature and classify particular literature techniques:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_technique

This helps to determine what's effective for communication and persuasion (you have to be able to classify things before you can attach an efficacy to them). The applications are numerous: from increasing entertainment value to utilizing effective propaganda and/or public relations, to informing the public in an easily consumable way.

 

[WannabeNewton]

My definition of value may not be a universal one but I would love to hear your definition of value that would allow literature research to be valuable.

I would consider a piece of research to be valuable if it promotes a deeper understanding of the subject area (no matter how specialized) that it tackles, to the target audience that it intends to encapsulate.

Because it has been demonstrated that research in science, technology, and engineering gives you tools that have applications to the real world just as long as enough time is given and therefore these applications are expected in the long-term. I've already given an example of how pure mathematics is used in cryptography engineering and how relativity went from zero applications when Einstein developed the theory to some (still growing) applications. Quantum mechanics has applications to electrical circuits.

Don't take this the wrong way but you are quite ignorant as to the breadth of mathematics and physics research. There's a lot more out there that is useless according to your criterion of value than is useful.

Are you saying that relativity is not valuable? Or just that specific paper?

I never said relativity isn't valuable in any sense of the term "value". I said that papers regarding the conceptual foundations of general relativity have no value within the utilitarian framework that you have established. However according to my conception of value, the linked paper would be of great value because it has greatly enhanced my understanding of global rotation in general relativity. It is purely academic in value; there is no pragmatic benefactor whatsoever associated with this paper and as such it would fail to hold up to your standards of value. This is true for a vast amount of academic resarch not only in the foundations of general relativity but physics and math in general.

Again, don't take this the wrong way but you shouldn't argue when you are ignorant of academic research in math and physics.

 

[MarneMath]

Is there anything inherently wrong with writing a research paper solely intended for other academics to read? I imagine if I spent my life writing and reviewing literally works I would want a place where I could express my ideas and have them critiqued. I imagine an English journal gives researchers that place and an opportunity to see where the community census on a topic may be. So therefore, I conclude that the existence of any English journal is mostly the by product of the demand for its existence within its designated community.

Not everything everyone does is going to save a person's life or improve the general human condition. It doesn't mean there isn't value in the action. I have no interest in car shows, and I'm sure they add no value to the human race as a whole, but to the people who do enjoy them and actively participate, it adds happiness and that's enough.

 

[-Dragoon-]

I've already provided the example for cryptography engineering. If you want an example for physics: when the theory of relativity was developed, it had no practical application to the real world. Relativity now has some applications and humans will continue to find applications of relativity. Quantum mechanics is expected to have real world application in the long-term.

Name one application of relativity that isn't just minor corrections that could be adjusted for without knowing the actual theory. While quantum mechanics in it's established forms still lead to other interesting applications, any new developments beyond low-energy quantum mechanics will almost certainly not lead to anything practical.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that the cutting-edge of physics research today is just about as "practically" useless using your definition as is English research.

 

[Monsterboy]

What do you mean by "useful applications" and "many applications", as these are subjective terms?


How is this going to help to save the world?

The whole problem is that the OP is only talking about tangible or materialistic gains ,which may not be possible to get from literary research but that doesn't mean it's useless ,just because some thing doesn't help you get bread on your table or travel faster in a car or do some everyday things in a more refined way etc doesn't mean it's useless.

 

[ZombieFeynman]

While quantum mechanics in it's established forms still lead to other interesting applications, any new developments beyond low-energy quantum mechanics will almost certainly not lead to anything practical.

I think it's a pretty safe bet that the cutting-edge of physics research today is just about as "practically" useless using your definition as is English research.

The majority of research is in "low energy" physics. There is a massive amount of research in condensed matter physics and AMO that has promising applicability.